fine, fine?

Oh, the homonym. Words that look the same. Oh, the homophone. Words that sound the same. Words that look and sound the same, are they homophononyms? Perhaps they should be.

The reason that I’m talking about these is because I have been thinking about the word “fine” lately. I find it kind of ridiculous that if something is just “fine,” it’s not that great, but if you’re using your “fine” china, you want to be reallllly careful. How does that work? So then I went on to think of different uses of the word “fine:”

Fine print. Fine hair. Fine toothed comb. Pay a fine. She’s lookin’ fine. Fine motor skills. Oh, fine!

Those are only off the top of my head. Where is the link bringing all of these “fine”s together? I’m not sure! I decided to take a look at the OED, which has three noun listings, one adjective listing, and three verb listings for the word. I haven’t even heard of some of these! Apparently, “fine” has something to do with ending, as in “to bring to fine.” This makes sense, because of the whole “final” thing. But that’s not what’s important right now. I guess I’m really hung up on the way that “fine” means really awesome, but it also means just mediocre. Further investigation in the OED says that it can be used ironically. Is this the basis of the so-so “fine” that’s ubiquitous today?

Perhaps that will have to do for now. If you have more information, please enlighten me/us!

~ by martie on March 14, 2008.